yet despite that belief, watch them make the most money on any blu-ray ever sold in a set in history for now and years to come.

the "fans" or rather the purist will speak differently once they are relased; i bet many of them will have a copy too, such as it is.

Did the Star Wars DVDs make more money than any other box set when they were released? I'm just not sure it has quite THAT much pull anymore. Maybe I'm mistaken. I'm sure I'll end up with the big box set of all six movies, despite my issues with George Lucas's brain. Will I get it on release day? Probably not. But the simple fact that I will be buying it doesn't mean I'm giving it the double thumbs-up. I can still hate it and hate myself for buying it. This is what George Lucas has reduced Star Wars fans to. Ha ha.

I read some reviews of the original BR version and although I own them, I have not yet watched them. In fact, I recently re-watched Fellowship with some relatives who had never seen it and the picture quality was so good on the upscaled DVD version which I absentmindedly plugged in, that I didn't even realize that I did not use my new BR version until I pulled it from the tray when we were done. The funniest part was when my Uncle said "Wow, I guess we DO need to get a BluRay player." during the early scenes of the Gandalf's arrival in the the forest around the Shire.

I never told them the difference, just so he could keep the excuse with his wife to buy some new electronics.Bro Code # n, "Never shoot down a Bro's reasons to buy new toys in front of his wife or girlfriend."

My question is (and Yes, I will have to try it for myself,) I have read some of the complaints about the theatrical BR version but one thing is not clear to me.

Are the complaints about details 'relative' to the expected BR quality but still superior to the DVD version or is the consensus that the BR version is so bad that the DVD is actually preferable? This will influence my decision as to weather or not I really need to invest money for just a few extra minutes of films I already own in two formats.

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With great power comes Awesome irresponsibility.

Murph, don't know the direct answer to your question about if the theatrical version on blu-ray is better or worse than the DVD or if it just wasn't up to Blu-Ray expectations, but the Extended editions will not only be longer (like you mentioned) but also resolve the issue of quality for Fellowship meaning that it will be the best version out there, regardless if it is extended or not.

Maybe just rebuy Fellowship in extended or something so that you don't have to fully reinvest.

I rented the Blu-ray version of FOTR and A/B compared it with my DVD version in my Oppo 981 with the BD in my Oppo BDP-83.

All I really noticed was an improvement in some detail. Though there were better black levels and colour pallet in the BD version I attribute that to the player which exhibit’s the same improved performance when comparing identical standard DVDs. Note I was watching on a 134” diagonal so the improved detail may not be noticeable as the screen size gets smaller.

The difference in audio was a mixed bag. Overall I think it was better, however I had grown so accustomed to hearing certain things (I use FOTR as a calibration check, and demo) the differences threw me off a big. Mostly changes in the LFE making them seem less pronounced in the BD version though the overall presentation seemed to have more clarity. Note that I could make all the comparisons I wanted because I always use the extended version not the theatrical so some of my demo scenes weren’t there.

LOTR are probably the only movies, at least to me, where the extended versions are actually extended versions. By that I mean that most extended versions of other movies usually only drop 10/15 min extra (at best) and most of the time they are scenes that either don't bring nothing to the movie and don't belong (Daredevil scenes with the drug junkie (Coolio) comes to my mind) or are a lot of scenes that are extended by a few seconds so it's pretty hard to notice everything that had been added (Troy is a good example, a lot of the extras are extended battles scenes that are hard to differentiate from the Theatrical release).The LOTR brings at least 30 min on each movie and adds full new scenes that actually bring something to the story. I own the extended versions on DVD and will buy the extended versions on BD.

The worst extended version I bought and was the least impressed with, I think is "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". There were about 3 places where they added an extra 5 or 10 seconds of missing content.